Para powerlifter Britney Arendse performed to the best of her abilities in Tokyo 2020 and is hopeful that replicating personal best form in Paris could elevate her to a podium position in her second Paralympic Games.
Born in South Africa, Arendse moved to Cavan at the age of five with her parents.
A car accident in 2009 that resulted in a spinal cord injury took her down a different path. Sport became more than just a coping mechanism, it was essential to her general wellbeing.
"I just wanted to stay fit and active. Being in a wheelchair, you need to be staying fit and active," she tells RTÉ Sport.
She cast the net wide - basketball, badminton, table tennis and swimming were among the sports she tried - but the road to powerlifting was one of pure chance, recruited to the sport during a wheelchair basketball match.
A tentative trip to the Irish Wheelchair Association in Clontarf opened up a new world, and while the Paralympic Games were nowhere near the radar, the disciplined routine immediately appealed to the focused teenager.
"It's a strict diet and training every day," she says, "and it does you good mentally as well. You're focused when it comes to competition and everything."
The first steps were to improve strength and increase weight. Theoretically a sound approach, but not as straight forward for a Junior Certificate student.
"The change in diet and routine was immense because I was still in school. I had to bring my food in with me because I couldn't have the pizza, the sausage rolls in the canteen.
"Kids would be staring at me and laughing at me, believe it or not, because I brought in tuna salad. They'd be like, 'the smell of that' - childish things, but I'd be like, 'listen, that's my life now healthier eating'.
"It was awkward to manage but over the space of two or three years, we kind of got used to it."
The dedication to her training, not to mention her dad’s creation of a home gym in Mullagh, saw Arendse’s talent start to take shape.
In 2018 she landed gold at the World Para Powerlifting Fazaa Championships for a second successive year, and also set a new junior world record in the 73kg category, becoming the first ever Irish powerlifter to do so.
The record was lowered a year later with a 100kg lift and the Irish woman moved into the top eight in the world.
She arrived in Tokyo in good form and that continued in the Games themselves, breaking her own PB on three separate occasions to finish seventh overall in the 73kg class.
Having never lifted more than 102kg before the Games, she finished it with a personal best of 107kg.
Mariana D'Andrea’s gold lift of 137kg demonstrated the strength of her competitors, and the bar has been raised significantly in just three years.
"It has gone up," she admits. "I'm lifting heavier and heavier every year - I'm just doing my best to keep up and build strength," says Arendse, who is now competing in the 79kg class and qualified with a lift of 128kg in June.
A tendinitis issue has hampered some of her pre-Paris preparation, but none of her ambition, having spoken publicly of her podium aspirations.
As the #Paris2024 Paralympic Games loom, the @ParalympicsIRE team, including Kerrie Leonard and Britney Arendse, are getting ready for action@SDawsonSport reports #Paralympics pic.twitter.com/GedsqfT41x
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) August 20, 2024
"We've just been working around it (the injury) and preparing as much as we can with that. I've been trying to focus on not inflaming it any more and just doing as much training as I can with it."
Arendse will have to wait until Day 10 of the Games to make her second Paralympic appearance, but isn’t fazed by being at the tail end of the programme.
While the steely determination to succeed in Paris is unquestionable, Arendse’s life has given her enough perspective to see the bigger picture.
It’s the rationale behind the sleeve tattoo that dominates her right arm.
"It’s faith, hope and love," she explains. "Faith in God because if we didn't have God, I wouldn't be here today.
"Hope in coming back. I got a fourth chance in life, because my heart stopped three times, once in the ambulance and twice on the operating table. So hope that the paramedics and doctors could bring me back, they did their best in huge operations.
"And then love for all the people that have been with me through my journey."
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